Where is the US economy headed?

OPINION: April 29, 2010
For consideration for publication or source material
The Fort Hood Attack: Unresolved
By Congressman John Carter

Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Al-Qaeda leader from the Washington, D.C. area but now hiding in Yemen, played a role in the 9-11 attacks, along with attempted attacks in 2006 on the Canadian Parliament and in 2007 against U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Then on November 5, 2009, he succeeded in helping instigate the deadly attack on Fort Hood, Texas leaving 14 Americans dead and 30 wounded.

Al-Awlaki then dispatched a second assassin to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, which attempt fortunately failed. Awlaki has since released a video claiming credit for the Fort Hood and airliner attacks, acknowledging his role, and praising the attackers.

Yet the Obama Administration continues to deny the Fort Hood attack was terrorism, failed to grant the casualties the same status as that given casualties from the 2001 Pentagon attack, conspicuously omitted even mention of the words “radical Islamic terrorism” in the official DOD report on the shootings, and will not acknowledge the role of political-correctness in stifling whistleblower warnings of the impending attack.

Now the Administration is refusing to fully comply with a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee subpoena that the Pentagon share documents and witnesses concerning the incident.

Senate Homeland Security Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Ranking Minority Member Susan Collins (R-MA) issued the subpoena after the Administration refused to provide those documents on the request of the committee.

The Administration bases their denial on the argument that releasing the information might endanger their prosecution of Major Nidal Hasan.
As a state judge who presided over murder trials for 20 years before coming to Congress, that’s ludicrous. Any prosecutor who can’t win a conviction against Hasan with literally dozens of eyewitnesses doesn’t need to be a prosecutor.

House and Senate members are not convinced that the Pentagon is taking the necessary steps to provide maximum deterrance to similar attacks in the future, or to respond to the aftermath of this attack. This is why subpoenas have been issued, and why I have introduced legislation to remedy these shortcomings.

As to the specific bills I introduced this year dealing with the Fort Hood attack, no floor or committee action has yet been taken, but the text of the bills are under consideration for inclusion in this year’s Defense Authorization Act.

The Fort Hood Families Benefits Protection Act, HR 4791 in the House and S 2807 by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) in the Senate, would award both military and civilian casualties of the Fort Hood attack the same status as that awarded unilaterally by the Department of Defense to the casualties of the Pentagon attack on September 11, 2001. All casualties would be deemed eligible for the Purple Heart or the DOD civilian award equivalent. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has also been asked to make that determination unilaterally as did former Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2001.

The Military Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, HR 4267, protects service members from politically-correct disciplinary action for reporting or taking protective steps against radical Islamic threats.

There is a new Al-Qaeda attack scheme against America that has emerged since 2001, that must be recognized by the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.

“Lone wolves” are being actively recruited by Al-Awlaki and his like over the internet, and encouraged to attack alone if necessary. The attackers may be dysfunctional individuals or even mentally unbalanced, but that makes no difference. The results of the attack are all that matter to Al-Qaeda. Major Hasan, the underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Colleen Rose and Jamie Paulin-Ramirez " the American women implicated in the plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist for drawing Mohammed " all are concrete examples of this new Al-Qaeda attack strategy.

It is a strategy that must be recognized, trained for, and guarded against by our Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies. Refusing to acknowledge reality is not the way to make that happen.

Please confine your anti-Obama propaganda to the appropriate threads.

This has nothing to do with the topic at all. Please confine your anti-Obama propaganda to the appropriate threads.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

This has nothing to do with the topic at all. Please confine your anti-Obama propaganda to the appropriate threads.

Cycloptichorn

Are you implying that Obama's policies do not affect the economy? Not so, cyclops, in fact Obama's policies are almost all economically unsound and negative.

You are correct, ican's info had more to do with Obama's poor terrorism policy, but I still strongly disagree that Obama's economic policies are working out, there is little evidence of that.

I would also add that without citizen confidence in an effective anti-terrorist policy, economic optimism is also going to suffer. None of these issues exist in a vacuum.

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.cpseea1.txt
Year USA Total Civil Employed
...
2001……………….............. 136,933,000 [BUSH43 2001 TO 2009]
...
2008:
August........................ 145,273,000
September……………... 145,029,000
October....................... 144,650,007
November................... 144,144,000
December.................... 143,338,000

2009: [OBAMA 2009 TO ?]
...
March......................140,854
April...................... 140,902
May........................ 140,438
June....................... 140,038
July....................... 139,817
August..................... 139,433
September................ 138,768
October.................... 138,242
November................... 138,381
December................... 137,792

2010:
January (3)................ 138,333
February................... 138,641
March...................... 138,905

okie wrote:

You are correct, ican's info had more to do with Obama's poor terrorism policy, but I still strongly disagree that Obama's economic policies are working out, there is little evidence of that.

Sure there is: the economy is doing tremendously better than when Obama took office. Even you cannot deny this fact. Therefore, it is fair to say that Obama's economic policies are working out just fine.

Even the DOW, which dived due to the crisis, is back up at the levels it was previously at. At one time you pointed to this as proof of Obama's failure, but you don't ever bring it up anymore. Why is that?

So the unemployment rate of less than 7% at the time Obama was elected, that gave all that audacious hope, when it rose to over 10% and is still hovering around 10% amidst all that wonderful hope and failed policies, you think that it is working out just fine, cyclops? I think you are delusional.

Obama as president, coupled with a Demcratic Congress is a very adversarial situation to business, and this will not change radically until we get new leadership that people know and understand are on their side, are for the people, the people that are the doers in this society.

Your first graph is fine, but I think you're overplaying your hand on the second. The second graph isn't demonstrating improvement. It's merely showing that during the Obama administration, the job market got worse slower.

Pfff, to hell with your Objectivist clap-trap. 'Doers' versus 'takers.' It's all about greed with you guys in the end, every time.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Pfff, to hell with your Objectivist clap-trap. 'Doers' versus 'takers.' It's all about greed with you guys in the end, every time.

Cycloptichorn

Obama is the guy into greed, as well as you, take from the producers and give to the non-producers.

And obviously you never looked at my graphs. The economy is worse under Obama than it was Bush, no question about it. Obama seems to want to destroy every industry he can get Congress to cooperate with him on.

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.cpseea1.txt
Year…………………..……..USA Total Civil Employed
...
2001………………..............136,933,000 [BUSH43 2001 TO 2009]
...
2008:
August........................ 145,273,000
September……………... 145,029,000
October....................... 144,650,007
November................... 144,144,000
December.................... 143,338,000

2009: [OBAMA 2009 TO ?]
...
March......................140,854
April...................... 140,902
May........................ 140,438
June....................... 140,038
July....................... 139,817
August..................... 139,433
September................ 138,768
October.................... 138,242
November................... 138,381
December................... 137,792

2010:
January (3)................ 138,333
February................... 138,641
March...................... 138,905